


In which the Lone Wanderer is a fuck up

by kittybenzedrine



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: 5+1 Things, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, it's just mentioned though, she gets hurt a bunch too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 15:22:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1987902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittybenzedrine/pseuds/kittybenzedrine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maze tries her best. She really, really does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In which the Lone Wanderer is a fuck up

i.

Charon is busy cleaning and oiling his shotgun. They've only been back in Megaton for a few hours at most, after being gone for nearly a month. Despite this, he knows as soon as he and his employer have had a chance to sleep and visit Moira sometime the next morning, they're going to go out back out and wander aimlessly until someone asks for her help. They may raid the Talon fort that they had just cleaned out.

His employer, Maze, is downstairs at the workbench, trying to create more Nuka Grenades and a Deathclaw gauntlet. She sings while she works, loud and off-key, along to whatever music is coming from her Pip-boy. Charon does his best to tune her out. Her singing is the reason they get caught by enemies when they are outside safe walls, more often than not.

He hears clicking and clinging, then a glass bottle shattering on the floor. She calls Wadsworth over to clean up the mess. After a moment, a locker door slams, more than likely indicating she just finished the last of her grenades.

Her singing resumes, as does her crashing and tinkering. Charon relaxes into the chair in his room, methodically replacing parts of his shotgun for better ones.

Rather abruptly, she stops singing. The music still carries on, soft as always, but there's only a few grunts from Maze, before she falls silent. Internally, he lets out a sigh. His hands still on the gun parts. He waits.

"Um, Charon? Can you... Can you come here please?"

He sighs and grumbles, setting his weapon and rag down on the desk. He gets to his feet, shimmying out of the small room.

"Charon?! Now, please?!"

He heads down the staircase, staring at her back. The Wonderglue lays on its side, cap off. It leaks out onto the workbench, pooling around the bottle. Her gauntlet is half done, the brace and belt glued together. The Deathclaw hand, though, is nowhere in sight. "Yes, mistress?"

Slowly, she turns around. He glances down to where she's cradling her right arm. "I fucked up. I fucked up so bad."

He uses every bit of his willpower not to begin choking on his own saliva. The Deathclaw hand is glued to her own. She looks at him, panicked, then back to her arm.

He stares at her as she tries to pry it off, wondering to himself how she managed to make it to adulthood.

 

 

 

ii.

Right before purchasing his contract, Maze was asked by Azrhukal about her weight. Very unlike himself, he hadn't done it in malice. Just plain curiosity.

It wasn't uncommon to see people as skinny as ferals. Food was a scared commodity in the Capital, with farms constantly raided and pre-war food being harder to find in the ruins. At that, it was a rare occurrence for someone to be overweight.

But she'd just smiled and taken it in stride, explaining that she had a thyroid condition, and it caused her to gain weight and made her fatigued. And since she didn't have her fancy Vault medication anymore, all the weight she'd managed to drop off came back. The answer was accepted, and the conversation moved on.

 

In Paradise Falls, however, they aren't as kind about it. They poke at her sides, make verbal jabs at her, and Eulogy Jones says something about suddenly being a chubby chaser while looking her up and down. But she takes it all in stride, with the tightness in her smile being the only indication that it's bothering her.

Forty and Carolina Red are the two that give it to her the worst. Carolina Red tells her a vivid story about how her and her daddy "killed this one fat guy just to listen to him scream, to see if he would squeal like a piggy." Maze smiles, tight lipped and irritated.

Forty though, he viciously shoves her as they cross paths. She staggers, and Charon catches her. "Get outta the fuckin' way, you fatass bitch," Forty spits. "I oughta carve you up like the fuckin' pig you are."

Her ragged patience abruptly reaches its end, at that point.

She swiftly brings her knee up, slamming it hard between his legs. He howls in pain, and she headbutts him in the nose. She does it so hard that his blood splatters on her skin. He goes down, shouting curses and cupping his nose and groin.

"WHY ARE YOU SO OBSESSED WITH HOW FUCKING FAT I AM?"

She realizes, belatedly, when Charon begins firing, that what she just did was considered an attack. The slavers of Paradise Falls retaliate swiftly. She snatches her Chinese assault rifle off of her back and pumps Forty full of lead before he can shoot her first.

Goddammit.

 

 

 

iii.

Her hair is a long mohawk that falls down to her hip. It took her years to grow her hair that long, and she takes good care to keep it healthy. It goes from her natural, glossy brown, abruptly to blue, which fades out in a gradient until it reaches green at the ends. It works well for her.

 

But, it is not a good week for her hair.

 

A super mutant gets lucky and pins her up against some lockers, where she thrashes, shakes, and kicks, desperately trying to get out of its grip. Of course, her knight in shining Tesla Armor rounds the doorway and shoots the big ugly in the head. She goes to leave and gets abruptly yanked back by her hair. Charon has to help her cut her mohawk out of the hinges of the lockers.

When they arrive back home in Megaton two days later, she evens it out, leaving it about five inches shorter. The colors are uneven and faded, and she begrudgingly gets the bleach and dye out so she can redo her hair.

 

She sits down on the couch half an hour later, letting the ends bleach while she marks off new locations on her Pip-boy. It's been an exhausting few days, but she wants to be done with her hair tonight. Ignoring the awful smell of the dye, she positions herself to lay back, to alleviate the pressure on her sore spine. Buffout may be able to help her carry more, but it won't stop her back from hurting as a result.

She wants to ask Charon to come help her, but was just as exhausted as her, and it feels wrong to her to wake him. She wiggles down further, getting comfortable while she messes with her map. Maze closes her eyes, hoping the sudden bout of eyestrain would pass soon.

She awakens nearly two hours later, cursing herself as she rushes to rinse out the bleach that was eating away at her hair. She loses another five inches after cutting away the damage, leaving it at her breast.

Maze sighs. It's too short to do her normal fade with, so she decides to just do what she can.

She double, triple, quadruple checks to make sure she had grabs the green dye. She applies it carefully, even setting a timer to make sure she'd be woken up in case there happens to be another accident where she falls asleep. She just wants to be done with her damned hair.

 

Halfway through, she realizes the blue was supposed to go in first.

 

 

 

iv.

One of the things she absolutely hates the about the Wasteland is how sandy everything is. The way dirt invades her belongings and every crevice of her body. She hates being gritty. And by God, was she gritty. It was at least a week since she had bathed, and she's sure she smells as bad as she looks. Charon even looks distasteful when she lifts her arms too high, so she knows she must reek something fierce.

By some chance, they find a secluded area of river water, completely hidden in with boulders, compete with a small pier and everything.

With a quick sweep of the area, they clear out the Mirelurks. Charon keeps watch, letting her go first.

She pops a few rad-x, then digs through her pack to find clean clothes and a small towel to dry with. She strips and wades in, promising her bodyguard that shell save him a decent amount of soap this time. He grumbles at her in reply.

 

Something nudges her butt while she's scrubbing an armpit. It makes her jump a bit, but she ignores it. It's more than likely trash, like it's always been, she reminds herself.

Whatever it is, it nudges her butt and thighs a few more time, before it pinches her. Maze shrieks and runs her out of the water. She slips on something large and slimy under the surface, but catches herself and propels onward. Charon is already on alert, and does nothing to stifle his laughter as a mirelurk hatchling runs out after her.

Much like she does when she sees a spider, she shrieks at him to kill it, while she covers herself with her towel. With a chuckle, he kills it in a single shot.

When a dozen more pour out of the water, she figures out what she slipped on. She slipped on a fucking eggclutch full of babies that were about to hatch. She screams louder when they all target her

 

 

 

v.

The entire week was shit. Absolute shit.

 **Day One** : She helps Winthrop repair the pipes with the unholy amount of scrap metal that she brings in to him. She likes to be helping out around Underworld. Charon is outside with Willow, smoking cigarettes and shooting the shit. Everyone notices their companionship and talks about when they're not around.

Maze, though, she knows that they hang out because have things in common, not because they want to fuck each other like everyone else thinks. They are both soldiers by default, both love guns, and can reminisce about things the younger ghouls don't remember. It easily gives them enough to talk about. Charon has no room in his contract for love, she has figured out.

In her distracted musing, she slams the hammer down on her left thumb and forefinger.

 **Day Two** : She goes out to help Willow with a problem she's having with bigoted wastelanders. The dispute turns violent, and she gets plugged full of bullet holes from blocking Willow. Doc Barrows isn't happy to see her, delirious and bleeding out.

 **Day Three** : She rests. Somehow, while digging through her pack, she slices her hand open on the splintered metal of a broken gun. Doc Barrows is still not amused.

 **Day Four** : Greta and Carol are both too short to do it themselves, and since no one else will help them, Maze offers the change a burnt out lightbulb for them. Knowing her recent unlucky streak, they find her the sturdiest chair in the whole Underworld to stand on.

It goes fairly well, until she puts in the new bulb. It shocks her. Literally. The surprise from the shock causes her to drop the bad bulb, which shatters on the floor. In her shock, she loses her balance and falls, landing on her side in the broken glass. With the way she lands, she ends up spraining her wrist.

All of this happens in a matter of six seconds.

Doc Barrows threatens to kick her out of Underworld as he picks glass out of her.

 **Day Five** : She randomly gets a bloody nose, which stains her favorite shirt.

 **Day Six** : Wanting to assist, she goes out to help unload everything from the caravan. A few super mutants attack, and since she only has her trusty baseball bat to protect herself, she gets pretty torn up from the nail board and assault rifles before Charon can get to her side. Barrows gives her a death stare when she's brought in.

 **Day Seven** : They leave, and immediately come back because she steps on a hidden bear trap not twenty feet from the front of the Mall.

 

"There aren't even any fucking bears in the area!" She exclaims as Barrows sews her up.

 

 

i.

She is so proud of herself. It's taken her four months to collect all of them.

 

Her new bedframe comes in early in the morning, and with a bit of help, a mattress gets brought on with it, and set up the extra room. The little den room upstairs is properly converted into another bedroom. The days of her and Charon alternating between the bed and the couch were finally over.

She has him go out and run errands for her while she fixes the room up for him, and he returns the moment she shuts the door.

Excitedly, she calls him up to look at the room. He dumps all the stuff she's had him get onto the floor, and makes his way up the rickety staircase.

"Ready?" She asks, opening the door before he can respond.

The look of horror on his face he looks inside of the room is the fills her with a horrifying amount of glee.

Nearly eighty teddy bear sit in various places of the room, all angled to stare directly at the pillow. And one giant one sits in the center of his bed, staring directly at the both of them.

"Do you like it?" She asks, looking at him with large, sparkling blue eyes. Her bodyguard has no idea how to respond. She's done it. She finally broke him

She nearly howls with laughter, and claps him on the shoulder. "I'm totally fucking with you. Oh man, it's taken me months to get all of these, and I've been trying to figure out how to get all of them in here, but I did it. Holy fuckin' hell, I actually didn't fuck this up. I'll get all of these out of here, and what do you say, tomorrow we take all of these to Lamplight?"

He grumbles and hunches his shoulders. "Asshole."

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted July 20, 2014. Edited and made slightly less shitty. 
> 
> Still very shitty.


End file.
